Many of the families of the victims of flight 370 are behaving as many Chinese mainland people do. They act out of ignorance rather than reason. Not only do they act out of ignorance but do so with the utmost insolence. Even the China Daily put out a opinion piece saying how they should behave with dignity and rationality.

I have heard and seen them accuse Malaysia of conspiring and detaining the people on the plane. I have heard them accuse them of lying. What evidence do they have of this? Nothing. Ironic since they also accuse Malaysia of making statements without evidence. Granted they have lost loved ones but does that give them an excuse to make up these baseless slanderous accusations? Rumor rules the lives of many Chinese and the slightest gossip can put them into a tizzy often with very harmful effects. Sadly much of the Chinese public believe the rumors and I have heard people say that they think the US and Malaysian governments are conspiring against them and know where the plane is. They think the passengers are being kept alive somewhere and demand they be released. This is the kind of blind that has brought China so much misery in the last 60 years. Malaysia hasn’t done anything that is morally wrong. Perhaps they could have done some thing more efficiently and been more careful but I have not seen them behave in anything other than what the situation warranted. I think they have done about as well as it was possible under the circumstances. If only the family members behaved as decently.

]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/shameless/feed/2sinobserverImageCrimea, Tibet and hypocrisyhttps://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/crimea-tibet-and-hypocrisy/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/crimea-tibet-and-hypocrisy/#respondWed, 02 Apr 2014 12:47:50 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/?p=563]]>As we know, Crimea was annexed by Russia in a move that is illegal under international law. Russian claims that it is legitimate because the people of Crimea voted in a referendum that they want to be annexed. Many American deny that the collective will of the Crimeans are relevant to the legality of Russia’s annexation. However, notice that many of those who advocate for Tibet to be independent do so because they rely on an ad populum argument, it’s the will of the people of Tibet to be independent. This assumption is unsubstantiated and from the available evidence false (see here and here). But even for the sake of argument if most Tibetans wanted independence, Tibet’s legal situation much like Crimea’s legal situation is not a matter of popular will but of national sovereignty. Ukraine has a right to it much as China has a right to sovereignty over Tibet as recognized by international law and the international community. ]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/crimea-tibet-and-hypocrisy/feed/0sinobserverThe silence is deafeninghttps://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-silence-is-deafening/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-silence-is-deafening/#respondMon, 28 Oct 2013 08:02:23 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-silence-is-deafening/]]>In the last few months since the Edward Snowden leaks, the western and especially US media has all but been silent on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage and hacking, a stark contrast with the months preceding the revelations. These leaks expose for the masses the complicity of the US media in covering up 99.9% of internet privacy violations which weren’t committed by an evil, foreign perilous totalitarian empire but by a domestic, evil, and totalitarian empire.

The American media in its focus on alleged Chinese cyber warfare was effectively acting as a propaganda smoke screen for the US’s actual warfare against the world and its own citizens. They were behaving as any good ministry of propaganda would for a totalitarian regime; covering their ass while demonizing some foreign other. But now it looks like the media is starting to shift priorities more in line with reality perhaps because it no longer could get away its past behavior. The public is now, thanks to Snowden, more informed about the reality of the privacy violations and simply look on all attention directed at foreign governments as propaganda. The media is quick to note this change in public awareness and must shift attention to reflect their concerns.

]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-silence-is-deafening/feed/0sinobserverNASA caves under pressure from republican scumhttps://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/nasa-caves-under-pressure-from-republican-scum/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/nasa-caves-under-pressure-from-republican-scum/#respondSat, 26 Oct 2013 13:39:25 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/?p=555]]>The virulently racist Frank Wolf has succeeded in pressuring NASA not to allow Chinese scientists to attend a NASA convention due to “national security” concerns. This is the same scumhole once at the heart of the China-gate scandals of the late 90s that saw a return of McCarthyism and yellowperil fanaticism in the media and US gov.

I’m glad to see, however, that scientists are boycotting the ridiculous scaremongering.

]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/nasa-caves-under-pressure-from-republican-scum/feed/0sinobserverIs there any other group in the US that you can openly call genocide on?https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/is-there-any-other-group-in-the-us-that-you-can-openly-call-genocide-on/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/is-there-any-other-group-in-the-us-that-you-can-openly-call-genocide-on/#respondSat, 26 Oct 2013 12:57:20 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/?p=552]]>On national TV. I wonder.

BTW, it’s a crime against international law to openly call for genocide.

]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/is-there-any-other-group-in-the-us-that-you-can-openly-call-genocide-on/feed/0sinobserverSecond Opium (Tobacco smoking)https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/second-opium/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/second-opium/#respondMon, 14 Oct 2013 11:37:31 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/second-opium/]]>During the 19th century, the imperialist British had sold so much opium in China that millions became hooked and the drug dealers profited immensely from the coercive and illegal (under then Chinese laws) trade. Wars between China and the foreign imperialists were started when the Chinese government tried to stop the trade. China was devastated by these wars and the epidemic of opium addiction. They are known and remembered in many Chinese people today as the century of humiliation and foreign exploitation.

Today, there is a drug as equally addictive and as equally or even more deadly than opium that hundreds of millions in China are addicted to. That’s tobacco. If you think this talk about the negative effects of tobacco is hyperbole, you need to learn more about tobacco smoking. The average man who is a smoker will have his life span reduced by 15 years and the average women by about 13 years.

According to a massive study by Chinese, American and European epidemiologists, smoking could kill (a BBC article which talks about the study) one out of every three Chinese men in the near future. That’s far greater overall and in relative numbers than opium in the 19th century. The same study showed that China has the largest number of smoking related deaths in the world. 2,000 people are dying everyday in China from smoking and could reach 8,000 a day in 2050.

One of the greatest causes of consternation for me in modern China is the incredible lack of respect for human life and for human dignity and the ignorance that pervades society. Very few people know about the dangers of smoking (see BBC link above) with two thirds of Chinese people think smoking does little or no harm. 96% of Chinese don’t know that smoking causes heart disease. Those who do know don’t seem to care about their own health nor about others so they smoke anyway. The even sadder fact of smoking is that most people who are hurt by it are not smokers who choose their poison but those around them who don’t necessarily choose to be slowly poisoned. This goes back to what I talked about earlier in that much of the problems in Chinese society happens because few care enough or are motivated to actually do something about it. Even small steps like telling someone to stop smoking in public space where it is forbidden or telling the security guard or shop owner at the mall can inform and reduce incidents of smoking in public. In China, few places are smoke free even though a public smoking ban has been in effect since 2009. Most victims are non smokers who do not choose to damage their bodies receive passive smoke.

This epidemic will severely burden the health care system into the future. I’m outraged by the attitude by so many Chinese people. The Chinese government needs to do more to stop smoking though they have banned certain forms of advertising such as TV, print and radio commercials. There needs to be more consistent, more obvious and harsher enforcement of already existent anti-public smoking laws for example. Obviously an outright ban will not work as so many are already addicted but there are other ways. Better education is what has reduced the number of smokers in the US by half in the last 50 years. That’s what needs to be done in China.

But I’m also pissed that only 10% of tobacco is imported. Most are domestically produced tobacco. Here’s were the analogy ends with the opium trade. In today’s China, it is not an imperialist foreign menace that is the major force for threatening the Chinese people and large aspects of their own government who profit enormously from tobacco (about 7-10% according to wikipedia of China’s government revenue is from tobacco sales). Chinese are themselves the biggest threat to their own well being. According to the BBC link above, treasury ministers sees great profits from tobacco sales and this is a hurdle to get any anti-smoking measures passed. The tobacco industry in China is also mostly monopolized by a state owned company (China National Tobacco Corporation 中国国家烟草公司). Any official or public well-fare advocate who dares stand against this profitable corporation will likely face stiff opposition. But if enough Chinese people cultivate a sense of self respect, consideration for others, and knowledge about health issues they will likely be the main drivers of reducing tobacco consumption. There is already a rapidly growing anti-smoking lobby within China.

This is a follow up to my previous post. I have been thinking about this for some time now and want to ask the why question. I have heard and read several explanations. I think they may have some truth to them but I also want to talk about an additional possible explanation.

Anyone who has lived in China for an extended period of time, if they are honest, will tell you that there is a noticeable degree of difference between the rudeness, selfishness, ignorance, dishonesty, slavish preference for white people, shallowness among many other vices of the Chinese compared to people in many developed (and even many developing) countries.

What causes this? One explanation from what I have heard (from Chinese people) is that during the 50-60s, China experienced such hardships with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution that people learned to be incredibly selfish, self-centered, just to survive and that this has carried over to today. Anyone who wasn’t kith or kin were treated like they were not worthy of any consideration.

The second explanation I’ve heard is that Chinese society is still relatively poor and rural going through transitional changes in social change. Many people were not just figuratively “born in barns” but literally. In the past, due to the type of agrarian society they lived in, many actions would not seriously affect others. But in a modern society, many of our actions may seriously harm others. For example, take driving. A driver is responsible for basically a large metal missile and the slightest mistake from a lack of consideration for the well-being of others can result in serious injury or death for others. In rural, Maybe that’s why you see so many idiots running red lights in China. They simply haven’t been taught to be aware of other people and the dangers of cars. Traditionally in China, people rarely wielded that kind of potential power over others consistently like they do today. Similarly with the food safety issues. If one’s food stall or restaurant isn’t clean, many people could be devastatingly affected. In big, crowded, modern cities, diseases spread quickly and basic hygiene becomes more important than in rural society where people were more spread out. So people are not so concerned with hygiene (such as the above Chinese mother shown having her child urinate in a Canadian mall’s rubbish bin).

Another explanation is that China lacks the rule of law. Bad behavior often gets a pass because there are few legal and law enforcement resources devoted to proper enforcement of decent conduct. As China devotes more resources in this area as seems now to be the case, more civilized behavior will replace uncivilized behavior.

Additionally, poor physical and or mental health (lead poisoning?) might also contribute to the mentality.

All these above explanations seem reasonable to me and may partially contribute to the modern Chinese mindset. But I also think that one explanation that hasn’t been talked about is that I realize that Chinese people are not as explicitly demanding of others as westerners. What I mean is that they don’t seem to outwardly express discontent with others over bad behavior as westerners when confronted with uncivilized/harmful/dangerous/inconsiderate behavior.

I think people underestimate how much social signaling (showing discontent/censure/resentment through language or even body language) can impact other’s behavior in positive ways. Public raise for good behavior also impacts people’s behavior. The self restraint, discipline and regard for others that it takes to build a civilized modern society requires lots of social communication both explicit and implicit in cultivating those traits which Chinese society and parents do not currently instill in their children. Modern Chinese culture may eschew public condemnation for fear that the one being condemned will lose face. Chinese people of course complain all the time and argue but they don’t usually confront others directly with their behavior no matter how atrocious that behavior is. So vices grow in a dark environment without proper light of social signalling from peers. What Chinese people take to be “civility” in not condemning these kinds of behavior is actually a superficial civility if one can even call it that. It is born of cowardliness, laziness and apathy, a kind of moral meekness/weakness masking as a virtue.

There is a famous sociological theory that what produced the European enlightenment of the last 200-300 years is precisely the increase of social signalling against uncivilized behavior (it started with such behavior as would be better qualified under simply “bad manners”) starting with the urbanization of Europe. Europe saw a dramatic decrease in violent crime following (though you can make a good argument that what they improved on in internal civility they more than made up in their brutality against non Europeans). Of course, this is rather an educated speculation (it is sociology after all) as this is just a correlation relationship and may not suggest a true causal one. But one hopes that China is currently in such a phase too but hopefully it won’t take another 200 years to bare the same fruit.

]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/why-are-chinese-people-of-such-low-quality/feed/0sinobserverImageExciting time for Chinese trackhttps://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/exciting-time-for-chinese-track/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/exciting-time-for-chinese-track/#respondTue, 03 Sep 2013 09:02:33 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/?p=479]]>I’m a fan of track and field. I had once predicted the success of Liu Xiang just before the 2004 Olympics (I had predicted he’d go sub 13 second for the 110m hurdles and get a medal) but I didn’t expect him to tie the then world record and win gold.

There are two good 100m prospects out of China now.

Zhang Peimeng recently set the national record with a 10.00 run. I think he can go sub 10 second in the coming two years.

Even more exciting is the 17 year old Youxue Mo who just won the world Youth Championship’s 100m race in 10.35.

]]>https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/exciting-time-for-chinese-track/feed/0sinobserverSyria intervention? (Hell no)https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/syria-intervention/
https://sinobserver.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/syria-intervention/#respondWed, 28 Aug 2013 11:43:04 +0000http://sinobserver.wordpress.com/?p=343]]>It looks like the US might go to war or at least militarily intervene with Syria (also see here). I am usually against military interventions and I believe that the situation in Syria does not so far warrant justification for intervention. I will talk both about wars and other kinds of mass state sponsored killings (aerial bombings, drone strikes, etc) as military intervention (for the sake of brevity) but I think the same principles apply in both cases. Most military interventions of humanitarian a nature has been unjust in hindsight and from this history alone we ought to be cautious of any proposal for future wars. I usually tend to think in terms of the five criteria I will lay down below for justification in foreign military intervention on behalf of humanitarian reasons. I think the principles are common sense and conjunctive (meaning that all five must be satisfied to justify foreign military intervention). I also believe that there might be additional principles that warrant inclusion as further conjuncts or disjuncts (at least one must be true) and will modify my 5 accordingly if they are presented to me convincingly. I might simply have not thought about this issue as hard as I could have or haven’t been exposed to the issue to know of alternative thinking.

Here are my five

1. Consent. What I mean by consent is that some degree of agreement or endorsement ought to be secured from the population in which we are going to war on behalf for the intervention (in this case, the Syrian population) and that a majority of the population ought to consent to reasonably fair and neutrally worded opinion surveys.

Some reservations and qualifications: First several surveys might have to be taken (with different wording or across different times and sample places) to insure more stable results. But consent on behalf of those we claim to fight for seems like a no-brainer. Two: what a “majority” means ought to be left for debate in some public space but I think it’s reasonable that it should be a “large” majority, perhaps more than 80%. This ought to be stable over all samples so as to reduce the chance of regional and temporal volatility. A military intervention probably impacts the whole country in profound ways so care and rigor in the ways I have just outlines seems reasonable to me in surveying public opinion. Granted it is often hard to ascertain public opinion through polls due to the political situation in many countries (the Assad regime might not want foreigners meddling with polls) but secret polls are often effective and have been used by international community such as the UN. Finally, this should be informed consent. Meaning that the questions on the surveys ought to reflect reality and the grim possibilities of war. Just because a population may want to overthrow their regime doesn’t mean that they will accept just anyone and anyway to do it. Syrians may agree, for example, that Assad must forcibly go by overwhelming majority but they may not agree that the USor its allies should be the ones doing the over-throwing. They may also fear and reject allowing foreign military or non military help of rebels to overthrow their government for (reasonable) fear that the rebels are Islamic militants, for example. The survey must also make it know that wars of intervention often turn out really bad (especially for the civilians due to collateral damage or the subsequent military occupation to insure stability during the post-war rebuilding process). The common people often become worse off as a result (take a look at Iraq as just one example of a case where the population almost universally agree in poll after poll that after the US led invasion that they are substantially worse than they were under Saddam Hussein).

We don’t know what the Syrian people think at this moment. Worse still, no attempt has even been seriously made to ascertain their opinions as far as I know about foreign US led military intervention.

2. Proportionality. This along with 1 is commonly used by just war theorists to evaluate the justness of any humanitarian war proposal. This is the cure-not-being-worse-than-the-disease criteria. There must be reasonable guarantees that the war will not result in even worse humanitarian crisis than it aims to solve. Wars rarely solve humanitarian problems. We know this from history. The ones that do solve humanitarian problems are of massive proportions (such as Nazi extermination camps and Japanese imperial aggression in Asia). Is the Syrian crisis approaching this level of humanitarian crisis? I’m not aware of any studies that accurately show that it is. 100,000 people have died in Syria from the crisis according to UN’s numbers but we don’t know who is primarily responsible (Assad’s regime, his supporters, or the rebels). I suspect that all have roughly equal roles in the crisis but I’m not sure and I don’t know of any accurate and certain information that currently exists that decisively shows that the Assad regime is mostly responsible.

Keep in mind that according to some of the most reliable data we have on the Iraq casualties, about 1.5 million people (mostly civilians) have died because of the latest Iraq war and countless survivors are injured. The infrastructure destroyed and the whole country in deep fear of fundamentalist and fractional terror. There are now far more birth defects in Iraq from the radioactive munitions used by the US than Hiroshima after the nuke. As we see from this and many other examples, war can snowball out of control into internecine violence even when they are waged on behalf of humanitarian reasons (or at least ostensible ones).

What guarantees have been offered by military powers that Syria will not become another Iraq? What proof is there that the many rebel factions will be better safeguards for human rights and democracy than the Assad regime? How reasonable are these claims?

3. Legitimacy. With this and the two further criteria below, I suspect that they are a bit more controversial than the first two. But I think international law is important and its thus important that wars conducted must surpass some kind of legitimizing hurdle such as UN agreement. The international committee and its opinion matters in international affairs such as foreign wars. Unilateral declarations of wars are problematic partially because they don’t seek the consultation of the rest of the world in a democratizing and process and respects the rule of law.

4. Exhaustion. Diplomacy and other overtly non violent means must be exhausted before violent military actions taken. Sanctions may also be an option on this list.

5. Accuracy. The reasons given by the invading/attacking power must be accurate. Why have this criterion? The reason is basically the same as why you’d want the Constitution to protect you from unlawful searches. If the police thinks you have child porn on your computer but it doesn’t have any evidence, they don’t have the right to search your house even if the search yields, say, some drug paraphernalia. Ex post facto justifications are illegitimate for a reason: to discourage the authorities from indiscriminate searches by the authorities.

In the case of Syria, the prevailing narrative by those wanting to attack is that Assad is the primary perpetrator of the human rights abuses in his country. If it is shown that this is not true (even if other factors may justify an attack is subsequently found).

Those are the five criteria I think are reasonable. Furthermore, because killing is a serious business and modern military interventions which often involves killing on a massive scale and with significant civilian casualty are thus a fortiori serious and standards of proof must also reflect that seriousness. A relatively high standard of proof for each of these criteria ought to be satisfied; mild and merely plausible evidence ought not suffice. In criminal cases, the standard of proof is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Perhaps such a standard or higher ought to be considered for military intervention.

There will be some who think that the five criteria I have set out are too stringent making the chances of just wars of humanitarian nature unnecessarily restrained/conservative and increasing the chances of gross humanitarian crisis. They may have more lax criteria or standards of proof for example. But the onus is on them to show what their criteria are. If they have none they are basically holding that war ought to be subject to the whims of those in power. There will be some who accept some but not all of the criteria I have set out but still believe that intervention is advisable. In that case, the onus is on them to show that the criteria they accept have been met. I believe that not only has all of the criteria I set out above not been met (satisfying conjunctivity requirement) but that none have been met to even a minimally sufficient degree of proof and thus even if you only accept some but not all, the justification for military intervention will be unjust. Many of the western media claims are incredibly suspect such as the claims that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. Not only is there little evidence of this but the evidence presented seems to implicate the rebels as the culprits who use them. For example, Assad refused entry to UN inspectors for months and only three days after granting them unlimited access to inspect weapons (what appears to be) a chemical attack occurred only 15 minutes drives outside of the UN inspection team. The US seems adamant not to investigate further stating that further investigation would be useless (one senior White House official stating that the evidence would be “corrupted” by Assad’s shelling of the sites) that and making clear that they have already reached a decisive conclusion (Cameron’s UK government also seemed to be just as headstrong about intervention, irrespective of pending UN findings). See the quote at the end in this article from Cameron).

Some pics of my Tibet trip. I went to the main monasteries of Lhasa and Shigatse. I went to Qomolangma (Mt. Everest) base camp and lake Yamdrotso among other places. And no, there were no signs of cultural genocide or any other genocides to speak of.